How to pass on trust?

We have already explained the necessity of putting forward the elements that mark your credibility in a speech. Indeed, if for one reason or another, doubt floats on your legitimacy to speak or on the relevance of your remarks, the attention paid to you will only be partial and the approval of your message will be delayed. Managing the trust given to you is therefore paramount.

Fortunately, trust can be passed on. When we fully trust someone, we naturally trust the person he/she recommends to us. This principle is easily adaptable to public speaking.

When you speak to an audience that you don’t know, we recommend having someone introduce you. Of course, the transfer of trust will depend on the legitimacy that person has with the audience, of his enthusiasm and on his way of expressing the purpose of your speech. But it has been shown that a speaker has more credibility when introduced by someone else, even if he is completely unknown to the audience. It would be a pity to deprive yourself of this opportunity.

Another way to pass on trust is to present as a team. Entrust the introduction to the person who has the strongest legitimacy or the one who can quickly be the most credible. When he hands over to a colleague, it’s important that he explain why he’s passing the baton to him, and to present him as someone who will be more accurate and complete than he is. Even if the next speaker is a less certain or effective speaker, the audience will almost systematically grant him the trust they had in his predecessor.

Too often speakers, relieved to have finished, forget to showcase their successor and botch these handovers. When this chain of trust is respected, it allows the audience to be more forgiving on the form and, above all, to be more attentive and focused.